If you don't hang out with idiots then you'll have a good time.
If you do hang out with idiots then you'll have a bad time.
Your ability to spot idiots is what will let you sink or swim. I know that I never had any trouble in high school because none of my friends were shit. If you latch onto a group of good, like-minded people then they will drive you towards success. Most of my high school friends are already doing things with their lives. They have good jobs that pay well, are in school, or sometimes already in the career field that they were aiming for.
If I had latched onto a group of idiots (e.g. my school's computer club) then things would have been different. I would have been surrounded by a group whose average IQ is in the double digits, where most of them don't know what a computer even does beyond its ability to play dumb games. That group is currently flipping burgers and working at supermarkets.
Or I could have latched onto one of the school's ball-handling teams. Like football, baseball, etc. The average IQ of most of those groups is in the single digits (pretty generous, because I'd be bringing up the average), and the only extra-curricular hobbies they have are vandalizing public property, getting drunk, and having babies at age 16. Most of that group is still unemployed because many of them believe that they're actually going to make it onto a college team, and think themselves too good to get a real job. Many of them also have children to worry about now because they thought that it would be smart to have sex with 10 cheerleaders in 1 night with 0 condoms.
Oh. And don't get involved in any of the super high society mega smart people programs. Their only real purpose is to give the school more funding. There isn't any real benefit to taking these classes. Most of them don't even give college credit. The average IQ here is about 105, but that doesn't matter because a lot of them are still idiots. Idiots who think that taking a few special classes in high school will actually mean anything in college. This group is currently doing the same sort of jobs everyone else is doing. They're also going to the same schools as everyone else. No. Nobody is going to Harvard or MIT.